Regardless of whether you’re looking at what’s happening in your own artistic/creative community or abroad, it’s safe to say that young people are coming through in waves with ambition and the nous required to bring their bold concepts to fruition. The establishment of indie record labels, arthouses, festivals and magazines are just some of the ways young people around the world are building strong platforms for expression and as we’re seeing, with the rise of more and more talented collectives, strength is definitely in numbers.
One such collective doing their thing and reaping the awards is the Doperoots crew, out of New York. Forming roughly four years ago between DJ/producer TJ Mizell and his manager Clayton Barmore, what began as an avenue to gather friends and fellow creatives together to collaborate and explore their inspiration, has now turned into a growing, influential brand of its own. Now also a record label founded by Mizell, Doperoots has continued to branch out and cover more territory.
For TJ and his brother Jesse, the music industry is in their blood. The sons of the Run DMC‘s iconic Jam Master Jay, the Mizell brothers are no strangers to the business.
“A lot of young people today have entrepreneurial aspirations and want to control their own creative.” Jesse explains. “Sometimes the artists wear multiple hats, handling the creative and business roles for the label. People may often feel that young creatives don’t have the ability to run the business aspects properly, nor do they have people in their corner with experience in the industry. All of our founders have 5+ years working in the music industry in creative and business roles.”
“We want people to know that we strive to be diverse, authentic and Dope in everything we create. If you’re dope and doing your own thing, but don’t want to just be restricted to one box there’s a place for you at Doperoots. We hope to represent a global brand that produces high quality content for all types of people to enjoy.”
‘Diverse, Authentic & Dope’ has been the driving motto of Doperoots since its inception and as Jesse notes, having New York City as their playground definitely feeds into the influence and motivation they’ve harnessed, moving forward.
“The NYC music scene can be a great place for artists to collaborate with a lot of different types of people and experiment with their sounds. We focus on these three ideals (‘Diverse, Authentic, Dope’) when creating all of our content. New York City has so much diversity and taking advantage of this asset gives us an advantage for creating unique content that can be enjoyed across the globe.”
For TJ, who also has been expanding his global profile on the road behind the turntables for A$AP Ferg, his sights are very much set on bringing Doperoots to a similar audience beyond the US.
“Having to decipher what songs to play or what vibes to curate in different countries keeps me aware of the trends in different parts of the world.” he explains. “I’m also very attentive to the fashion that’s represented in each place that I go. This all funnels into the aesthetic of Doperoots, because we’re constantly pushing something different. The music we make and represent doesn’t have a specific origin of location, but it’s created through the influence of the globe.”
As of 2017, Doperoots is home to four artists including TJ, T-GUT, Lenny Emery and DJ Rhetorik. Barmore, who handles the day to day operations of the company and too oversees the fruition of the Doperoots brand, facilitates the development of the business moving forward; along with further development of the fashion and production side of the business, the Doperoots music label is anticipating some pretty exciting developments of its own.
“The label will be putting out its first album release in the next few months.” Jesse says. “TJ Mizell will be dropping debut original music on Doperoots. This will come in the form of a EP containing three to five TJ-produced tracks featuring some emerging vocal artists. This project will be accompanied by visuals, live events, and a slew of other social activations.”
Existing in a social climate where connection with a fan base and audience online is, in many cases, critical to the growth and success of an independent brand, Jesse opens up about the advantages having a connection with other artists from around the world, thanks to the internet and its various platforms and tools for sharing and making music.
“As a company that services DJs and producers, we feel this is the biggest advantage we have over past generations of music distributors and creators. Our DJs are constantly playing music from all over the world. Operating in New York City gives us a huge pool of cultures to draw influence from and we take full advantage of this.”
Find out more about Doperoots here. You can follow the collective on Instagram here.
———-
